Jazz pianist and keyboard player Craig Taborn began working professionally in the 1990s in a variety of musical contexts, ranging from more straight-ahead jazz to more outside music, with young jazz musicians, seasoned veterans, and even techno artists.

In his hometown of Minneapolis, Taborn studied piano, composition, and music theory with area university professors before going away to college. Before he graduated from college, Taborn had already performed on three recordings as a member of the James Carter Quartet. After graduating with a liberal arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1995, DIW released Taborn's first date as a leader, The Craig Taborn Trio. He then moved to N.Y.C., and by the close of the '90s he had performed on two more Carter releases; Roscoe Mitchell's 1999 ECM release, Nine to Get Ready; Detroiter Carl Craig's techno-jazz project Innerzone Orchestra; and Hugh Ragin's Afternoon in Harlem. His second album, Light Made Lighter, was a piano trio date for Thirsty Ear in 2001.